In this contribution to the Special Issue on the instrumentalisation of education, we focus on the relation between politics and education, as today there is a dominant discourse on rendering education subservient to the realisation of political aims. Rather than analysing the many ways in which such instrumentalisation takes place, we propose to…

Recent work in education research and policy studies has been critical of the view that sees education as a fix for social problems. This perspective invites a reconsideration of the relationship between education and society that breaks from the long held instrumental assumptions informing most education theory and policy, wherein education is a…

The world is changing, but political and educational institutions appears to be stuck in the 19th century. Modern policy and education are both premised on an Enlightenment assumption of the human, rational, individual subject. Increasingly, elements of these philosophical premises are being interrogated. The critique emerges from the…

This article considers the Sámi understanding of time and place in pedagogical settings. The study is based on research material gathered at Sámi schools and from teaching conducted in the Sámi language. These data were combined to develop a theoretical review of teacher education from a metatheoretical perspective. The research challenges…

Purpose: This text aims to shed light on the background of neoliberalism and the basic characteristics that underlie its approach to the "Entrepreneurial Self." The neoliberal economy, and the concept of entrepreneurship which is driven by it, is defined by a range of perspectives which build its epistemology and explain its current…

The American university is in transition, witnessing major changes to its institutional structures and processes. While the 1960s and 1970s were decades of progressive democratization in American higher education, today's university is more aligned with the economic theory of neoliberalism. Existing at the intersection of two dominant but…

This collaborative paper reflects on academic life in Aotearoa-New Zealand. Drawing on our different personal histories, we examine the dominant influence of neoliberal ideas in shaping tertiary education reform, explore the importance of identity and worldview in structuring academic experience, and discuss the role of philosophy of education in…

US curricular policies frequently bolster neoliberal power structures within both pre-K to 12 schools and universities by privileging settler-colonial narratives and excluding Indigenous knowledge. However, curricular policies can also serve to enhance social reconstructionist and social justice education. In this article, we describe two case…

Widespread recognition of the detrimental effects that human activities have had on nature and its ecosystems can now be found in every domain of public policy. Since the inception of international accords in the 1970s provoked greater engagement by nations in environmental amelioration measures, "education" has been lauded as an important panacea…

This article sketches a post-Occidental interpretation of the historical/conceptual relationships between modern western education and European civilizational identity formation. Modern western education will be interpreted as a modern/colonial institution that emerged along with the sixteenth-century responses to the questions provoked by the…

Until the global financial crisis, neo-liberalism had appeared invincible. This article examines the global rise of neo-liberalism and its impact on education, particularly its treatment of the social democratic ideal of equality. Drawing on examples from education and other socio-political factors, it considers whether the financial crisis is…

Presented as a symbolic interactive messy performance text, Michael Giardina sutures himself into and through the landscape of global social relations, including his own interpretive interactions of disconnection and reconnection with place, home, and nation. In so doing, and in these collages of lived textuality, he examines the complex,…

Intercultural dialogue, as currently theorized and practised by the Council of Europe, is limited in its capacity to contribute to social cohesion in and among religious communities who differ fundamentally from each other. Adherents of the major religions believe that their religion is uniquely true and consequently feel that their religious…

Edward Said the refugee could not easily allow himself to join in the celebration of demythologizing nationalism. His Palestinianism had to coexist, uncomfortably, with his universalism. Time made this necessary coexistence an asset, not a liability, and this in fact was his political legacy for the future: Jews and Palestinians would have to…

This article argues that under neoliberal casino capitalism there has been a wholesale attack not only on the social state but also on those public spheres that enable the formative cultures necessary to produce critical agents, engaged subjects, and the literacies necessary to make power and authority accountable. In this instance, the struggle…